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The BEA recently reported that Mainers spent $3,736 per capita in 2014 on what the bureau calls food and beverages purchased for off-premises consumption, otherwise known as groceries. Vermonters spent $4,104 per person and Alaskans spent $3,924, while New Hampshire followed just behind Maine at $3,635. The national average is $2,780.

Lifelong Mainers may not notice the difference, but folks who move away are conscious of the higher prices.

“My niece, who lives in Ohio, when she comes to visit, she can’t believe it,” said Gloria Quatrano of South Portland. “She says everything costs more here than it does down there.”

While no one is challenging the veracity of the federal data, there is no consensus among food analysts contacted by the Maine Sunday Telegram about why Mainers spend so much more on food. Speculation ranges from consumer choice (we simply enjoy food more and are willing to spend more on it); food costs more here (Mainers paid 11 percent more than the national average on nine staples tracked by the federal government); and regional tastes (a larder full of New England fish and seafood will cost more than a comparable cupboard of beef or chicken).

But for Mark Lapping, all it takes is a quick glimpse at a map for a clue as to why Maine is near the top.

“We’re at the end of the food pipeline,” said Lapping, a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Southern Maine who has studied food issues in the state and region.

Lapping said all the states in New England have to import a fair amount of their groceries because most of the food processing in the U.S. is done outside the region.

All six states, except Rhode Island, exceeded the national average of $2,780 in per capita food spending, and Rhode Island came in under that figure by just $5.

It’s not just that a lot of the food is grown elsewhere in the country and then shipped to the Northeast. Lapping said that the number of farms in both New England as a whole and in Maine has been in a long-term slump, although the state has experienced a rebound in recent years.

Most of the food produced in the region is sent elsewhere for processing, he said. So, add to the cost of the food the cost of transportation to the processor and then more to bring it back from the processor, and the result is higher prices attributable just to moving the food around.

“Almost everything goes out of state for processing and then we buy it back,” with only a few exceptions, such as seafood, Lapping said.

Ephraim Leibtag, the deputy director for research at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said there’s more to it than that.

“It’s what people choose to buy,” he said.

Leibtag said prices do play a role, but that probably accounts for only about 20 percentage points of the higher spending on food by Mainers.

A worker wraps a pallet of food in plastic as he prepares to load a truck at Sysco food services in Westbrook. A federal study shows Mainers spend $3,736 a year on food, way above the U.S. average of $2,780.

CHOOSING LOCALLY HARVESTED FOOD

With Mainers paying 34 percent more than the national average on groceries, the higher spending probably reflects their food choices as well, he said. For instance, Mainers might opt for fish instead of beef, and a pound of haddock is more expensive than ground chuck.

Brian Todd, president and chief executive officer for The Food Institute, said heavy spending on food by Mainers isn’t a recent phenomenon. The state’s residents have been outpacing the rest of the country on food spending for decades, he said, and the margin is growing. In 1997, he said, Mainers spent 24 percent more on food per capita than the national average, and that spread has since grown by 10 percentage points.

Todd said food retailing has grown in the state – between 2007 and 2012, the number of food stores in Maine grew by 18 percent, compared to an increase nationally of about 1 percent. He thinks Mainers are simply enjoying the wider choices by buying more food from more vendors.

His observation is borne out by a presentation made by Mark Malone of Malone Commercial Brokers at a 2013 forecasting conference for the Maine Real Estate and Development Association. Malone noted that 20 years ago, traditional supermarkets accounted for 86 percent of all food sales. Now that percentage has shrunk to 49 percent as wholesale clubs, specialty food stores, dollar stores and even pharmacies nibble away at supermarkets’ share of the market.

Wal-Mart alone has captured 25 percent of the food market, according to Malone’s presentation.

The wider availability of food products is coinciding with an uptick in the economy, said Todd. Recent declines in the prices of oil and gas could fuel more food spending by giving consumers more money in their pockets when they visit all those places groceries are now sold.

Lapping said Mainers’ growing reputation as foodies – witness all those restaurants in Portland that have sprung up in the last two decades – might also be playing a role.

“We now have more than 20 artisanal cheese makers in the state,” Lapping said.

Most towns have farmers markets where people can buy locally grown vegetables, fruits and meats, and Skowhegan now has a grist mill where farmers can take their grain to be ground.

While food sold in farmers markets and artisanal ground grain might be more expensive, he said, it’s a price Mainers seem to be willing to pay to know who grows their food.

Supermarkets have tapped into the buy-local food movement through their marketing. Lapping noted that supermarket chains highlight locally grown produce in-season, usually indicating which farm grew the fruit and vegetables.

And, he said, the number of Maine dairy and cattle farms is growing, especially as droughts in other parts of the country make it difficult for those farms to survive. Lapping said the impact of the drought on farming in California was easy for him to see on a recent visit there and it’s leading to greater demand from local dairies.

“Our ace in the hole may well be our plentiful water supply,” he said.

Leibtag said people shouldn’t discount the role of choice in the higher spending on food by Mainers. For instance, he said, the local food movement might offer the hope of lower prices in the future, but it’s often more expensive now.

“People may actually be willing to pay more for fresher food and better quality,” he said.

That’s true of Megan Young and Hank Hughes, both from Burlington, Vermont, home of higher spending on food than Maine. The two Maine College of Art students recently shopped at the Hannaford store near Back Cove for staples, but said they prefer stores that offer more organic food and farmers markets in season. They said that food is usually pricier, but they don’t mind.

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NEPAexile

I believe the most important reason is that there is little competition. We are wholly owned by Hannaford and Shaws. I don’t think Walmart is as big a player. I wonder if Market Basket were to expand throughout the state if the stats would change.

John Golden

I agree there Shaw’s is useless and Hannaford is confounding. I’m curious about Market Basket which has a great reputation. It should open in Portland so we finally have a choice.

NEPAexile

Drive the 18 miles to Biddeford to try it out.

guest

Walmart is #2 in grocery share in Maine, behind Hannaford. Shaw’s is a distant #3.

Raw moon

Market basket was planning a store in either S. Portland or Scarborough but was stopped by a collective effort from hannaford/shaws and Walmart.

MCHaye

First I’ve heard of this. Can you elaborate?

Tardis1

Market Basket slowed their expansion plans in the wake of their management shakeup last year.

guest

MB is crippled with debt so their expansion has slowed considerably and they can’t be as competitive on price anymore.

go2goal

Yes – I have been told the same story by a S. Portland official “off the record”. Hannaford’s knows how to grease the skids in town halls across Maine to keep out competition. Money talks.

Market Basket prices are at least 20% lower than Hannaford’s – but they don’t pay to play and so it may take time for them to expand further into Maine.

MCHaye

Are you suggesting that Hannaford somehow influenced the city of South Portland, monetarily, to prevent Market Basket from building a store here? That’s a pretty serious allegation and it would be quite damning to both Hannaford and the city…

Raw moon

does this really surprise you if it were true???
not me –

MCHaye

Yes, it does surprise me. And if someone is going to make such a serious allegation I think they should be able to back it up.

guest

Hannaford has never hesitated to use every possible tactic to keep competition out. MB has done the same thing where it has a dominant market share.

guest

Stop & Shop were trying to build in Scarborough but Hannaford swooped in and bought the property and then resold it to MMC at a huge loss. Then S&S tried to build at Morrill’s Corner in Portland but a Hannaford-funded astroturf group successfully lobbied the city to kill the deal. Hannaford also tied S&S in knots for years in Kennebunk; by the time the Kennebunk store finally got built their expansion plans were so crippled that they had to close the store after just a couple of years.

KraziJoe

Which is ironic since they are owned by the same company now.

guest

Not yet; the merger is still pending. There will be a lot of integration issues to sort out, so the impact will take some time to show up locally. They will have to sell a lot of overlapping stores in Massachusetts and the Mid-Atlantic to satisfy antitrust.

CleanUpME

We don’t use Hannford anymore and use Shaws for a couple of things. We buy most of our groceries at Marketbasket and Walmart. When we make a trip to New Hampshire we also buy what we can there.

MaineMod

I guess I am the only person I know who has found good value at farmers markets. I thought I got a good amount of food for relatively little money spent. Perhaps I just hit it on a good day.

Bob Rossi

Count me in on farmers markets. Although I go for the quality rather than the value. The produce at farmers markets is far superior to what you can get at any store, including Whole Foods.

Scott Harriman

+1

The people who write these articles apparently never shop at farmers markets. Many items (maybe even most of them) are less expensive there than in the shop.

theophiluser

Not all farm markets are bargains. Some exist to rip off customers and they do it with a vengeance.

Euphoria2012

“Our ace in the hole may well be our plentiful water supply,” he said.

We won’t have that ace forever if we keep allowing our water to be trucked out of state. Water is more valuable than oil but we are giving it away for free.

Raw moon

our water in maine is vastly superior to most other states. now if we could only nix the fluoride in our water …

MCHaye

Just to keep things in perspective, Mainers spend less than the national average on a variety of other things. We’ve consistently had the least-expensive auto insurance in the nation for many years. The amount spent annually on auto insurance in other states dwarfs the extra money we Mainers spend on food.

Frank McDermott

My wife and I spend the winter in Phoenix and find food to be almost 1/3 less. You can find milk for under $2 and can by Atlantic farmed salmon for less than $6. There are 6 or 7 groceries within two miles of our home.

Jeff

Maine’s milk prices are propped up by law so you can’t legally buy a gallon of 1% for less than $3.25 this month.

castinem8

Could someone please tell me where I can get coffee at $5/lb as shown in the chart.

MCHaye

They must be talking about generic store-brand robusta. Not something I’d ever drink.

mac0892

The more Market Basket stores Maine has the less we’ll pay for food/staples in general. Westbrook will be their next location – Hannaford and Shaw’s have been ripping us off for decades — they will be heavily impacted as MB moves north from Biddeford. The Shaw’s in Biddeford by exit 3 has closed and I expect MB to continue to push them out of the state. Hannaford will continue to lose market share, be forced to lower prices, get rid of their top heavy management and upgrade their stores. They can’t compete with MB.

Raw moon

good post mac, very true. I would love to see that happen in westbrook. you need to know your prices because some of MB items are more expensive than shaws/hannaford.

guest

MB isn’t all that when it comes to pricing, especially since the buyout. At best they’re on par with Hannaford and Walmart. MB is riding on their old reputation, but it is no longer deserved.

Bob S

Shaw’s was founded in Maine, so I would expect them to retrench under new management. Their frequent sale over the last decade tarnished their ability to compete and lead as they eliminated a level of mid level managers with experience and passion. Gentlemans agreements between the supermarket families traditionally kept MB out of Northern NE, but times have changed and new players are establishing beach heads in the region, which helps in terms of choice and most likely will mean lower prices. Hannaford’s fate depends on the recent merger with the parent company of Stop & Shop. As the article states being at the end of the transportation pipeline puts us at a definite disadvantage…

Devonshade

I blame lepage.

Raw moon

figures ~

Mark Usinger

What seems to be missed in these comments are the realities of wholesale food buying in Maine. We are at the end of the pipeline, and that distance from market adds dramatically to the overhead of doing business due to transportation costs. I know this all too well, as our company supplies ships with many items, including fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, fish etc. Maine lacks sufficient population to import quantities in a large enough volume to keep prices down. One captain told me what he was paying for a particular type of German beer in a major city in the south. I told my beer supplier this figure, and he said that his company couldn’t even buy it for that price. Our produce in the summer and fall comes largely from New Jersey due to their prolonged growing season and highly organized agricultural system. Barring any major impact from global warming, I don’t see any of that changing any time soon.

AmbroseBear

Hannafords, Wal-Mart and Shaws has been realizing a huge windfall profit in food sales all across the board due to extremely low and lowering heating oil and transportation diesel and gasoline fuel energy costs, which have not been passed on to Maine consumers.

Emergency legislation should be introduced immediately to recover, on behalf of all Maine food consumers, profits so as to return a reasonable portion, at least 80 percent, of the windfall to the people.

When big food industry refuses to do so, that is when government is, on behalf of the consumers being obviously gouged with unnecessarily high food prices, must politically respond and legally act in my view.

Raw moon

Good point. when food prices go up, they never really come down. unlike gas/heating oil which rise and fall according to market fluctuations.

guest

The airlines and shipping companies are not passing along lower fuel costs as well; in fact, shipping prices are going way up.

theophiluser

Something is suspicious about these numbers. Being ” at the end of the food pipe line ” hasn’t hurt us when buying bananas or OJ and better cuts of beef which are cheaper than in Florida. Maybe it’s all Maine’s banana and orange trees and herds of beef cattle.

Bea

As a member of the Maine Cheese Guild, there are actually over 80 licensed cheese makers in the state now! The farmers markets around the state are working hard to offer a wide range of locally grown products and many work with other organizations to offset prices to folks using their SNAP benefits, which in turn helps the local farmers.